Let's play a game of mobile payments bingo. Say yes to all five and you win!

In the last three days, did you use your mobile phone to:

table 01 of 01: bingo card

Do your answers to these questions give you the idea that you are using your phone more and more to pay? If so, you're in line with the latest results from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice.

As you can see below, using a phone to pay—especially to pay bills and other people—has increased as a share of payments in recent years. More payments are being made with phones.

chart 01 of 01: Share of payments made using a mobile telephone

  • In October 2016, 11 percent of bill payments were made via mobile phone; in 2018, 18 percent.
  • In October 2016, 5 percent of payments to another person were made via mobile phone, in 2018, 17 percent.

The Diary of Consumer Payment Choice records the daily payments behavior of U.S. consumers 18 and older. Consumers report not only whether or not they used a mobile phone but also if they used a computer or tablet—either remotely or in person—or snail mail to pay. They record the dollar amount of the payment, the payment instrument used (for example, cash, debit card), and the purpose or payee (utilities, grocery store). These consumer behavior data can be analyzed in the context of household income and demographic attributes.

You can read the full report online and download the data for analysis.

By the way, I couldn't complete my bingo card. My answers:

  1. No.
  2. Yes, 34-pound bag of dog food (using the web browser on my phone).
  3. Yes, coffee from my local barista (using a QR code).
  4. No.
  5. Yes, see my answers #2 and #3.

How about you? Did you win?

Photo of Claire Greene By Claire Greene, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed